Did someone say Tumut 3 Power Station Open Day?!?
Friday
Left work a little early and headed down the Hume. We stopped at the lookout at the north end of Gundagai to see All The Water.
Then took a drive down to the flood plain to see All The Water.
Middleton Drive across the Murrumbidgee was closed to traffic. Because All The Water.
Also had a look from the south end of town.
Straight after arriving in Tumut we headed up to TRBC for a couple of beers and noms.
We had a potato and rosemary pizza which was lovely and the Amazeballs were actually totes amazeballs!
Saturday
Bacon and egg rolls for brekky then off we headed to Talbingo.
We got the second shuttle from town, in time for the second power station tour at 9:10.
They had a bunch of staff doing the tours. These guys were not normally tour guides! We had an electrical fitter? engineer? (can't remember) and another tradie as well. We had to wear a hard hat and highvis, and also safety glasses which were pretty pointless because they didn't fit over my glasses (and the "tour guide" wasn't wearing them anyway). They also said "no photos" but then "you'll be told where you can take photos" and our guide was like, um what places would they be? heh. Part of it they were worried about people dropping things down some very big holes, but also apparently they were a bit secretive of the electronics at the top of the turbines. The rest of it is all pretty much common knowledge anyway. We walked down and past the busbar room and onto the generator hall floor. I did ask if we could take photos of the old control room which is no longer in use (they remote control everything from Cooma these days and just have a skeleton crew on site, plus whatever projects are going on).
After we got out I said we should take the earliest penstock tour we could do to beat the crowds. We walked straight onto a coach and it wasn't full - winning!
We went up past the dam wall, and across the top. People could have gotten out at the far end, but it would have meant waiting for the next coach in half an hour to come back, so noone did (plus I had better photos from last time when we had glorious weather).
Then onto the top of the penstocks. They gave us ten minutes there and it was super cool!
Then back down. The queues were already getting long now. I totally called it.
The signs said no climbing on the pipes. Nothing about standing under them to show how damned big they are!
The last time we were here I had a sad that this wasn't open to go in and have a look. So I was pretty excited that we could this time.
The turbine hall is super cool. Six turbines. Three of them only generate, and the other three can either generate or pump water back up the penstocks when power is cheaper. The generators were upgraded from 2006-2012 to 300 megawatts, so the whole power station can generate 1800 megawatts.
Looking across to the old control room.
One of the inlet pipes
They also have a super cool working model of one of the turbines.
And a model of the area around the dam and power station
I'd love for this thing to be on the internet - it's a graphic of all the different powerstations on the Snowy Hydro system and which ones are in use. Only like three were in the whole system - lots of solar and wind around or something.
Finally we took a shuttle back to Talbingo. The guy organising the queues for the buses (one for the penstocks and the other for the town shuttle) clearly wasn't used to doing this sort of thing and was completely overwhelmed by the crowds. Luckily most people seemed to be queueing for the penstocks, so we walked straight onto a shuttle back.
Stopped by Jounama. It was flowing pretty hard, and Blowering was full right back up to this dam.
Last time we were here Blowering was a *lot* lower. Blowering was actually over full.
We tried to get a good view of the spillway which was spilling *hard* but as I discovered last time there's not really any good views of it. And sadly the road to the top was closed off, so couldn't even walk across the top to see it (we saw people up there so no idea how they got there).
We did find this suspension bridge over the Tumut River.
The Tumut River was flowing hard with All The Water.
Found somewhat of a view of the spillway on the way back.
Had a pie back in Tumut for lunch, then headed out to Adelong. It had been flooded just last week. Water was up to the level of that bridge.
This house had water midway up the shed, and the yard was full of damaged gyprock from the house. The owner's story is here.
This is that bridge from before showing all the damage from debris.
The sculpture walk was closed, but we did see this rabbit sculpture which reminded me of Donnie Darko.
The mine area was closed off too, so just got a view from the viewing point.
We tried to get out to the truss bridge over the Tumut River east of town but All The Water was over the road from both directions. It *probably* would have been fine, but we decided not to risk it.
Back in Tumut we walked down to the Old Bridge park. Last time we were here the water was a lot lower! The bridge itself had a big gate across it as well.
The walkway either side of the bridge was flooded in various places. This is on the south side with the bridge over Mcfarlane's Creek.
The park was also filled with All The Water.
Had some bubbles back at the motel before heading over to Mendrinas at Brooklyn for dinner. The steak was just a teensy bit over done but the lamb was quite overdone which was a bit sad. The salad was pretty amazing though.
Sunday
Went for a bit of a wander around town to fill in some time.
The Tumut River with All The Water from Wee Jasper Road.
At 11:00 it was time for our tour at TRBC. Unfortunately we didn't get Tim this time (apparently he has to have time off *sometimes* hehe) although we did see him in the bar and chatted for a while. So the story wasn't as rich this time. They do have more brewing tanks now, and they've recently got their own canning run, so they can can their beer as needed and not have to wait for the canners to come in. They're still getting used to it.
The tour isn't nearly as good value for money either now. Last time the four tasters were larger and included lunch. Now the tasters are smaller and lunch is not included. Oh well.
For lunch we had maple bacon and blue cheese pizza and a salad with smoked trout.
Bought a mixed case of beer, then headed home.
Comments